Gina Rinehart's legal tussle with her son John and two of her three daughters, Hope and Bianca, over a $5 billion family trust is on the public record. Mrs Rinehart's relationship with nine young Cambodian women from poor backgrounds has been conducted somewhat more discreetly.

''She's super-invested in these girls,'' said Sean Looney, a former staffer at SISHA, the Phnom Penh organisation that manages Mrs Rinehart's ''Hope Scholarship'' program.

It is unclear what triggered the mining magnate's interest in supporting the students. What is clear is that no one might ever have known about her good works in Cambodia had SISHA not grabbed headlines last year.

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Mrs Rinehart's donations to SISHA - more than $1 million between June 2012 and June 2013 - were thrown into the spotlight when allegations surfaced about financial mismanagement at SISHA (South-East Asia Investigations into Social and Humanitarian Activities), headed by former Victoria Police officer Steve Morrish.

A KPMG audit finalised in December revealed a slew of financial issues, including that $440,000 of Mrs Rinehart's funds, set for a women's crisis centre, had been diverted to cover SISHA's operational expenses. The audit found there had been no misappropriation of funds by Mr Morrish.

It also determined that, while some funds for the Hope Scholarship had been redirected to cover other SISHA operations, they had been appropriately accounted for and that the board believed sufficient funds were available to cover intra-program liabilities as they fell due.

''Mrs Rinehart will continue her funding of the Hope Scholarship program … Please do not suggest otherwise,'' said Jabez Huang, a spokesman for Mrs Rinehart, in an email.

Mrs Rinehart's support is not just financial. Emails from Mr Huang make it clear she takes an interest in the welfare of the scholarship holders as well. Please make sure the ''nice cook'' is retained, she wrote in a 2013 email seen by Fairfax Media in which she expressed concern that the girls not be distracted from their studies by domestic matters.

The beneficiaries, who were picked for the scholarship based on their academic achievements at school, live in a house near the university with the cook.

Cambodian sources say that Mrs Rinehart's manner is ''lovely and very warm'' and that she is generous with gifts, which have included motorbikes on which they can zip through the Phnom Penh traffic, and iPads. SISHA staff suggested she decrease her monthly allowances to the girls - from $250 each a month to $100 - given it is unlikely they will be able to make that sort of money when they enter the workforce in Cambodia.

The first thing a new Hope Scholarship student gets is a passport so she can be taken to Singapore or Bangkok for full medical check-ups. When Mrs Rinehart stays in Phnom Penh, she checks into the Raffles Hotel Le Royal in Phnom Penh, where she has hosted her girls for buffet dinners. At Christmas, the girls visited her in Siem Reap.

''She'll come to Cambodia and stay a night or two,'' a Cambodian insider said. ''She doesn't want to talk to program staff or anything, she just wants to see the girls.''

Mrs Rinehart keeps in contact with the students via email. ''She always responds to their emails, but does not wish to intrude on their studies other than for her visits,'' Mr Huang said. ''She looks forward to seeing them each year, including twice when she has flown them to Kuala Lumpur so that they could be with her when she received international awards.''

During one such visit to Kuala Lumpur, some of the girls joined Mrs Rinehart at an event where she was presented with an award. Before the event, she took the girls to buy high-heeled shoes and to get their hair done. According to one witness, the girls did not have their make-up done professionally. Mrs Rinehart told them they did not need it. They were beautiful just as they were, she said.